Crowdfunding
Mr. Wonderful Aligns Efforts with Equity Crowdfunding Platform ‘StartEngine’
Wonderful News
In a piece of positive news, popular crowdfunding platform, StartEngine, has announced the arrival of a new shareholder/investor – Kevin O’Leary (AKA Mr. Wonderful).
Moving forward, Mr. Wonderful will assume the role of strategic advisor for the platform. In doing so, StartEngine stands to greatly benefit from his vast network of connections, and the public attention that he is afforded.
Raising Capital
Mr. Wonderful notes, in his inaugural address as strategic advisor to StartEngine, that crowdfunding comes with various benefits. The following are examples of these benefits:
- Flexibility of terms
- Participating companies have greater control of their valuation, and share price
- A potentially greater share of the company can be retained
- With a greater number of shareholders, each act as ‘brand ambassadors’, providing much greater exposure to company operations.
Equity Crowdfunding
The JOBs Act, which was put into place during the Obama administration, laid the groundwork for Crowdfunding as we know it today.
Not all methods of crowdfunding are the same, however. In the following article, we take a look at what differentiates equity crowdfunding from investing in stocks, and simple crowdfunding seen through platforms like Kickstarter.
Kevin O’Leary
After successfully building and selling his company, SoftKey, for a staggering $4 billion, Kevin O’Leary (aka Mr. Wonderful), rose to fame in the public eye via Dragons Den. This fame was then solidified through years as a host on spin-off ‘Shark Tank’.
Kevin O'Leary (Mr. Wonderful)
Whether looking at his experience as an entrepreneur, investor, or TV personality, few have experienced success like Kevin O’Leary. It is the culmination of these successes that has allowed him to become a prominent force in business.
Mr. Wonderful recently created an informative message, detailing his relationship with StartEngine, and what we can look forward to from the platform moving forward.
Kevin O’Leary has commented specifically on COVID-19 and how it relates to crowdfunding.
“With the coronavirus pandemic causing economic uncertainty, startups and small businesses are having an incredibly hard time accessing capital, so you're going to see a material increase in interest in crowdfunding companies like StartEngine that are solving that problem…We're going to look back on this period as the start of the rise of equity crowdfunding, and I think it's an industry that StartEngine is going to win.”
Speaking with Howard
Upon announcing the development discussed here today, StartEngine CEO, Howard Marks, took the time to share his thoughts.
“We saw huge growth in crowdfunding during the last economic downturn when entrepreneurs needed to find alternative capital sources. We are similarly ready to provide a funding solution now, in what is shaping up to be another challenging period…With the high level of uncertainty, we've already seen venture capital and angel funding slow significantly. The opposite is true on StartEngine — we're seeing tremendous interest from everyday investors in the opportunities on our platform.”
Howard Marks continued,
“Crowdfunding is unique in its ability to find large numbers of shareholders that are aligned with a company's mission and goals and are not on compressed timetables — a problem that currently plagues the traditional private equity and venture financial services industry”
In our on-going interview series, we have in the past had the pleasure of having a thorough discussion with StartEngine CEO, Howard Marks. This conversation provides insight into the beginnings of StartEngine, and how they grew into the platform we know today.
Interview Series – Howard Marks, CEO of StartEngine
StartEngine
Founded in 2014, StartEngine maintains operations in Los Angeles, CA. To date, the company has helped hundreds of companies raise over $135 million in funding. This funding was made possible through a network consisting of over 235,000 active investors.
CEO, Howard Marks, currently oversees company operations.
StartEngine Makes Inc Top 10 California Companies List
In Other News
Much like the blockchain sector, crowdfunding is young and still experiencing a period of discovery and growth. In the past we have looked at various platforms which facilitate such methods of capital generation, in addition to operational differences between Canada and the United States.
